= responsible_markup plugin for Rails
<i>Because you shouldn't ship unless it's valid.</i>

A plugin which provides tests for
* (X)HTML markup validity...
* Unobtrusive Javascript...
* Backwards-compatible XHTML...
* ...and other hallmarks of responsible web development

Why? Because I'm lazy. Unless there's someone around to call me on it, I'll
write markup which works, but which doesn't follow best practices. After all,
it's easier to stuff a bunch of display data into a style attribute than it is
to refactor my CSS classes.

This is a set of assertions to use in unit tests and functional tests to keep
us (read: me) honest. We (read: I) owe it to ourselves, our clients, our
employers, and the world in general, to produce the highest quality code we can.

<i>Do it for the children.</i>

Remember to check your CSS[http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/],
{RSS/Atom}[http://feedvalidator.org/], and
XML[http://www.stg.brown.edu/service/xmlvalid/] output as well.

== Installation

If your project is source-controlled by Subversion (which it should be, really),
the easiest way to install this is via Rails' plugin script:

  ./script/plugin install -x http://svn.codahale.com/responsible_markup/trunk

If you're not using Subversion, or if you don't want it adding
<tt>svn:externals</tt> in your project, remove the <tt>-x</tt> switch:

  ./script/plugin install http://svn.codahale.com/responsible_markup/trunk
  
Alternatively, you can just check the trunk out from the repository, if you're
super-DIY.

  cd path_to_rails_app
  cd vendor/plugins
  svn co http://svn.codahale.com/responsible_markup/trunk responsible_markup

Or you can go to the website and download various release archives:
http://plugins.codahale.com/responsible_markup

== Usage

=== Overview

1. Install the plugin. (See previous section)
2. Write unit tests, incorporating the various assertions provided.
3. Develop application, secure in the knowledge that ResponsibleMarkup will call
   you on your laziness.

=== Specifics

See the documentation for ResponsibleMarkup for a full list of assertions and
their usage.

== Using Your Own Validator

If you're using this often (as you should be), you should go ahead and install
a local copy of the W3C Validator. Doing this will speed up your tests
as well as reduce the load on the public W3C Validator.
<tt>assert_valid_html</tt> caches the results in the temp directory, but any
large set of tests will generate upwards of a hundred requests. It makes sense
to have the time per request as low as possible.

To install the W3C Validator on a local server, follow these instructions:
http://validator.w3.org/docs/install.html

To use a local validator, follow this example:
  require 'test/unit'
  
  class ValidityTest < Test::Unit::TestCase
    ResponsibleMarkup::validator_uri = 'http://127.0.0.1/validator/check'
   
    def setup
      html_content = generated_by_magic_process(:go_go_xhtml)
    end
  
    def test_validity
      assert_valid_html(html_content, "http://foo/bar/squee isn't valid XHTML")
    end
  end

== Resources

=== Subversion

* http://svn.codahale.com/responsible_markup

=== Blog

* http://blog.codahale.com

== Credits

Written by Coda Hale <coda.hale@gmail.com>.

Released under the MIT license (see MIT-LICENSE).

W3C results downloading & caching code lifted from Scott Raymond's
{assert_valid_markup plugin}[http://redgreenblu.com/svn/projects/assert_valid_markup/].
Excerpting and backtrace-cleaning code lifted from the Rails source. The
structure of the Rake file and a few other layout conventions were lifted from
Geoffrey Grosenbach's {ar_fixtures}[http://nubyonrails.com/articles/2005/12/27/dump-or-slurp-yaml-reference-data]
plugin.

Finally, thanks to my employer, both for paying me to work with Ruby and Rails
on a daily basis, and also for allowing me to release code which I developed for
them.